De Gucht: Canada-EU technical talks ‘more difficult than originally foreseen’

The technical negotiations of the Canada-EU trade agreement have taken longer than expected and there are still three or four thorny issues to sort out, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht told reporters Thursday from Brussels.

“I know there was a great deal of expectation… my meeting yesterday with Canada’s Trade Minister Ed Fast in Paris on the sidelines of the OECD meetings would lead to the EU-Canada trade deal negotiations being concluded… but to be quite frank, final technical discussions have proven to be more difficult than originally foreseen,” De Gucht said in press conference following a meeting with EU trade ministers.

“This is simply the nature of trade negotiations… It really isn’t over until it’s over. But rest assured, we’ll get there in the coming weeks.”

When asked to explain what aspects of the technical negotiations are causing delays, De Gucht was initially vague.

He also backtracked from his timeline.

“There aren’t that many (issues) anymore. There are three or four that we still have to resolve. But a couple of them are a little bit thorny, so difficult to put a date on it.”

One of the issues, he explained later, is agricultural tariff rate quotas (TRQs) — a common system whereby certain goods enter duty free or with negligible tariffs up to an agreed upon amount or quota, then face prohibitive tariffs afterwards — as in Canada’s system of supply management.

While the Canada-EU agreement-in-principle increased the quota for European cheese imports, for instance, determining how that’s allocated is a difficult process.

“The points on Canada what you call sticking points — they’re really technical stuff, you know. For example, how do you manage TRQs, tariff rate quotas? Are you doing that on the basis of licenses or first come first serve? How do you make sure that it spreads over a number of countries?” De Gucht asked.

Though he didn’t explain any of the other thorny issues, investor-state dispute settlement questions are also believed to be causing problems.

As the EU continues it Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the U.S., EU member state opposition has emerged to investor-state settlement provisions that were included in the agreement with Canada.

Opponents believe it inhibits the governments from pursuing legitimate public policy issues.

These provisions, found in NAFTA’s Chapter 11 and Canada’s myriad foreign investment protection agreements — allow investors to sue national governments for discriminatory treatment and bring them before independent tribunals.

At the moment the European Commission is undertaking a public consultation on investor-state dispute settlement to determine whether they want it included in the TTIP talks.

Since the CETA isn’t finalized, that means it could be revisited in the Canada-EU talks as well.